November 2009

30 November 2009

The 29nov09 London Times now confirms (here) that the original (raw) temperature data that was collected from thousands of realworld sources has been permanently lost. This invaluable data was processed to yield a modified dataset which in turn was processed with all kinds of corrections, adjustments, and normalizations to give the final temperature graph in the shape of the famous ‘hockey stick’. It is this hockey stick graph which purports to show a recent calamitous rise in earth’s temperature history.

Then up popped ClimateGate – the revelation of the massive fraud from the CRU emails recently hacked and made public. This was reported here and over the rest of unblinded world. The Climate Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia is the mother temple of earth’s temperature history, and the basis for the UN’s IPCC reports that set off the political palpitations in the hearts of Team Gore and the global warmists. Which palpitations, by the way, have yet to miss a beat on their way to the upcoming Copenhagen conference that will attempt another revival of the insane Kyoto greenhouse gas protocols, which no one ever implemented and/or lived up to.

But the bottom line of the Times article is that the ‘scientists’ destroyed the raw temperature data that started all this. This is something you NEVER do in science; raw data is sacrosanct, because from it all subsequent datasets are generated. The permanent archiving of such raw data allows follow-on investigators to confirm or not the correctness of the revised dataset(s)’ production pathway. Now all such work is conveniently no longer possible. Like Hillary’s law firm billing records of yore, they have disappeared, and the CRU admits that they were destroyed. Now that would be an inconvenient truth.

[1dec09 update] Dr Richard Lindzen of MIT is one of the world's most respected meterologists and climate scientists. He and many of his peers have spent the last ten years publishing research and reasoned articles in the world's press that point out the foibles, fantasies, and fiascos of the AGW hysteria mongers. In today's WSJ (here) he has again summarized the science that counters the politicized arguments which form the basis of the upcoming Copenhagen conference where Obama will try to promote his cap and tax legislation, or worse. The worse part is the Copenhagen treaty on global warming that has been kept under wraps and may surface there for a surprise signing. The voluminous treaty portends a Marxist world government with teeth to enforce the destruction of economies, and the transfer of wealth from the richer to the poorer countries. Lord Christopher Monckton gave a recent talk on the subject (video here) in which he warns Americans about the loss of our sovereignty. The leftwing promoters of our socialist future simply ignore all this and bet that so will you.

29 November 2009

That question was asked recently by the Pew Research Center of a random sample of Americans who answer phones. The survey contained a 12 multiple choice question questionnaire. The questions were pretty vanilla about the current world. There was only one question the answer to which may be debatable.

The sidebar is one of the results panels that you can see when you visit the survey's website, but go here first to answer the questionnaire to see how you did.

Hat tip to a regular RR reader for the link, and who also remarked, "Scary. And they all vote."

[update] On ClimateGate and AB32, I am fascinated how uneven is the coverage of these major news events. One revealing the patent fraud behind the IPCC 'science' (and there's a lot more to come as this door is pried open) and the silence of the lambs. This even as IPCC scientists are beginning to denounce their colleagues (here) while our leftwing Congress is trying to rush Waxman-Markey through on the coattails of ObamaCare.

The other news deals with AB32 - California's economic death knell legislation now being hurried into practice by the socialists. It seems that there is a great awakening occurring and an initiative, led by our Assemblyman Dan Logue, to get AB32 repealed in next year's election.

See more on this and related climate change news on Russ Steele's NC Media Watch.

27 November 2009

Piracy on the high seas – another symptom of a dysfunctional society of nation-states. Just heard SecState Clinton blather about working to develop “appropriate 21st century means of controlling piracy.” Historically pirates were the original international terrorists – not criminals - and were summarily treated that way by every legitimate government. Using Admiral Nelson’s tactic of “going straight at them”, civilized society showed them no quarter - when they were caught, they were executed. With this response policy and advancing technology, piracy essentially disappeared in the 19th century from the world’s routes of commerce. Now it’s back because politically correct nations are tying themselves in legal knots trying to figure out how to deal with pirates that is more … more what? Another sign of coming totalitarianism or Mad Max anarchy – in both systems the law abiders are punished and the scum runs free.

In this putative economic recovery lots of economic indicator numbers are being published, analyzed, and interpreted by mostly innumerate journalists. Their reports are almost all suspect because most of them can’t tell the difference between a number as an attribute attached to something, and a number being used in or derived through a mathematical computation of a realworld process that itself is being reported. To them all numbers are simply ‘math’, and therefore excusably foreign. So if such a reporter writes that ‘recent sales tax receipts are down’, that is not math. But the equivalent sentence - ‘recent sales tax receipts are down 10%’ - is considered ‘math’. And these people are supposed to be our window to the world?

The Nevada County Library privatization dust-up is in full progress. A RR reader who has been following this in The Union (here) emails a sentiment that, I suspect, many harbor but have yet to voice. “I'd likely make this business decision in 5 minutes. But then government jobs are ‘above’ business.” In any case, I invite readers to keep an eye on how all this develops through the (count them) three working committees now involved in resolving the issue. For perspective, please refer to my workforce and public sector union columns here and here.

And finally, here is a typical leftwing discounting of the recent climate change email fiasco by fraudulent scientists (a summary here and a lot more on NC Media Watch). As an educated reader, see how many dots don't connect in this pithy dismissal from the liberal website truthout.com.

26 November 2009

24 November 2009

OK, by now most people not tied to the MSM mammary are aware of the global warming hockey stick hoax. RR summarized the fraud issue here and offered links for those interested in more detail. More detail has now started gushing on the thinking public, take a look at today’s (24no09) WSJ piece ‘Climate Science and Candor’ that serves up a collection of the hacked emails sent by the celebrated sleazebag scientists to each other. And even the NYT and Washington Post (gasp!) have belatedly stuck their toe into this issue.

Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data. ...

Yet all of these nonresponses (from involved scientists) manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn't have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.

But let’s take a step back and again see this fraud in terms of the politics of climate change and anthropogenic global warming (AGW), this is the part that will affect you, me, and all of us. The True Believers are not yet daunted by this little fraud – no, no. They argue that a few rogue scientists mangling the world’s historical temperature data and developing spectacular temperature curves is no big deal, and doesn’t affect the real conclusions about AGW and what must still be done.

23 November 2009

Britains’s Climate Research Unit hack, noted here and elsewhere on the blogs, is beginning to unravel the position of the True Believers more and more. Anthony Watts (Watts Up With That) published the latest discoveries from the ‘global warming software’ that was made public against the years’ long efforts of the ‘scientists’ involved. The short version is that they used their programs to generate crap.

There are three distinct groups involved here – 1) scumbag ‘scientists’, 2) True Believers, 3) sleazebag politicians. Groups 2 and 3 are ignorant of earth’s climatology and climate modeling. I grant that Group 2 probably consists of good-hearted, well-meaning people concerned about humanity, but they possess neither the knowledge nor the tools to understand how the AGW issue is framed, let alone proved. They just listen to Groups 1 and 3, and then join the damaging background chorus. Group 3 doesn’t really care about the science or humanity. For them it is all about power and control, starting with maintaining and/or advancing their own political careers. These pols are mostly composed of but not limited to progressives and collectivists.

And then there’s Group 1. These guys have degrees, published papers, and positions that give cover to Groups 2 and 3. They consist of technical types who don’t know what they don’t know and prattle on, and then the real scumbags are the ones who know what they don’t know and do ‘science’ with the intent to defraud – i.e. cook up pre-ordained results.

22 November 2009

Now I don’t claim to be any kind of an expert in cooking. But over the years I have demonstrated that I can whip up a dish or two that requires more than a piece of dead cow and BBQ sauce. Back in the 70s I accepted the challenge of coming up with a recipe for the cheapest (and least desired) vegetable in the grocery store. Jo Ann informed me that this was banana squash selling for eight cents a pound – nobody much cared for the stuff.

Well, I puzzled on that hard and uninviting piece of biomass sitting on the kitchen counter until a light bulb went off. Soon I was grinding and chopping and slicing and baking. Not long afterward, the house smelled good and out of the oven came the square Pyrex baking dish with something bright yellow(ish) in it with nicely oven-browned tips. It was not all that unattractive, and when we threw a tastebud on it, everyone said ‘wow!’ – I had invented a tasty dish for the lowliest vegetable that many considered a notch above fodder. In order not to divert the established momentum and thrust of this development, I will simply report that my bride promptly named it Santa Claus Squash.

21 November 2009

Science meddled, not settled. The big buzz on the climate change is the hacking of Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). If confirmed, it turns out that the much celebrated scientists behind the famous ‘hockey stick’ temperature curve committed fraud – they more than fiddled with the data, they substituted more politically favorable data to support the UN and Team Gore agendas. For details, see Anthony Watts and my friend Russ Steele (NC Media Watch) who report regularly on the progress of the AGW fiasco (links on right sidebar).

Why scientists sometimes do bad science is not hard to understand. And the herd instinct applies here in spades. In a recent email I explained it as follows –

There is a certain class of scientists who can only work in foundation/state-funded institutions – i.e. they cannot get a private sector job that maintains their quality of life. It is these scientists who are most prone to sell their souls and their science in chasing the available funding. I witnessed the process for over twenty-five years as a defense contractor. The political money has been allocated worldwide to this ‘perfect storm’ ushering in the new global era. Follow the money, the funded conclusions are guaranteed to be compliant. ... This CRU hack is a significant break, if it can be kept politically from being buried.

The Senate’s version of ObamaCare comes up for a “procedural vote” tonight. Majority Leader Harry Reid is working hallways and offices twisting arms and drumming up the needed 60 votes to bring the bill to the Senate floor for debate. The ruse is that it’s only debate on the bill that will happen next, but that’s for consumption by the unwashed. In this Senate, what reaches the floor now will be the version that will be voted on. The Republicans, with their minority, have no hope of modifying the bill or attaching any of their amendments.

The report documents what students of the American scene (that includes the astute RR readers) have known for some years now – legislating un/underfunded programs of social engineering will lead to financial ruin. Well that ruin is upon us now, and the Pew folks list the other states following California pell mell down the fiscal (then social) rat hole.

The “report released today by the Pew Center on the States shows that some of the same pressures that have pushed California toward economic disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of other states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country. Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin join California as the 10 most troubled states”.

19 November 2009

When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson

The following was forwarded by an RR reader. Please think about it, and do something.

Amendment 28

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.

18 November 2009

Boy, are we getting what we deserve. The USSR in the depths of the Cold War could not have prescribed a more draconian regimen of self-destruction for the United States than the one we ourselves are putting in place. Its architects are the terminally corrupt politicians in Washington who are cheered on by at least half the population. Now for some current particulars for those still harboring doubts about the premise –

• The ObamaCare bill coming out of Congress is the first of several poison pills we are concocting. Its yawning flaws are becoming apparent even to some (but only some) of the faithful. Jeffrey S. Flier MD, dean of the Harvard Medical School, explains here.• Waxman-Markey (cap’n tax) should be dead on arrival, but it isn’t. Copenhagen will not replace Kyoto, but Obama will seek to shoot us in the foot in any case. The pious Europeans have yet to meet any of their carbon cutback targets, yet carping about ‘US leadership’ is keeping our environuts in a high level of agitation shouting their mantra, ‘The debate is over, the debate is over, hurry up and pass the goddam thing before they catch on!!’• The first three tranches of unfunded stimulus monies have not worked, now let’s get set to launch another one as election season approaches. Never mind the definition of insanity, there are votes to be bought. Besides von Mises’ ‘Do nothing, sooner.’, there are alternatives for government intervention that may actually help (see here)• Washington’s crash and burn policies are performing so badly that government lying has been switched to the wholesale level. As an example, witness the nationwide reports compiled by the White House on Obama’s patently ludicrous jobs ‘created and saved’. If there are none in real congressional districts, then let’s make up some virtual districts.• Internationally, China is lecturing us on how to run an economy and advising against ObamaCare and cap’n tax. As our biggest creditor, they have a vested interest in our economy, so their advice is more than sincere. Don’t hold your breath, the DC dolts have tin ears and sinecures to maintain.• Anyone who has tracked Iran’s wily ways knew last spring that the mullahs were going to take the community organizer for a ride on the next round of ‘oh sure, we’ll just send our uranium out of the country and it’ll come back all civilized and peaceful’. Even the eternally negotiating defenseless Europeans wouldn’t hold their breath for this one; but not the junior birdman from Chicago. So now the towelheads have stiffed us again. We’re messing with a culture that was proficient in duping naïfs like us before Caesar drew his last. (Notice how quiet the MSM is on this.)• As a final shot in the shorts, the Potomac pinheads still don’t know the difference between illegal aliens and H1-B visa immigrants. As soon as they dust themselves off, to the former we grant more civil rights and benefits than to our citizens. But going through legal channels, the latter have to wait ten to twenty years to set their boots on US soil. The trouble is that our industries need the H1-B guys something fierce, why? Because they can push squigglies (you know, those funny looking equations and stuff) and create wealth, which our kids don’t do so good no more. But have we got self-esteem.

So this is the current course of our ship of state – pick your own iceberg, we’re sailing into a passel of them. Oh yes, our President is still trying to get that pesky eightball with the little window to give him the correct answer on Afghanistan. What did Thomas Jefferson say?

17 November 2009

The comment thread under my recent column in The Union’s online edition started out normally – with the usual acrimony, vitriol, and inanities - and then morphed into a disjointed discussion on ‘handles’ and ‘sackheads’ and privacy, and even “public safety”. It brought to a head something that I have been thinking about for some time, but I should first back up.

All of us who surf the internet’s blogs, columns, and information sites have run into comment threads that are full of the most disagreeable diatribes launched by commenters at each other. They hurl such ad hominem insults from behind the anonymity of ‘handles’ which are short character strings that may mean something to them, but little besides a temporary marker to anyone else. One is not even sure of how many people are really participating, since a single person may enter the fray using several handles.

The common denominator of such scattershot threads is that they seldom stay on topic, exhibit inabilities to accurately read let alone understand the written word, are absent of reasonable development, invariably illuminate nothing, and lead nowhere. But given their number and frequency, they must provide some type of release not available elsewhere.

This month I decided to experiment and respond to some of the comments that actually attempted to address the volatile topic of public sector unions which was the thrust of my column. My thought was that readers might like to expand on what I had presented. It turned out that polite replies actually made some progress in transiting from the ad hominem to the substance of the article. In this exchange I lamented on the use of handles and said –

Using a handle is the literary equivalent of speaking in public while wearing a paper sack with two eye holes. It is a disguise worn for many reasons, and for certain kinds of discourse, it is the only acceptable way to present yourself and your views. I think that those of us, who under their own names openly offer their commentary in a public forum, should be perfectly at ease with the self-assessments that responding sackheads offer. They certainly know best which messages should not be traceable to the messenger. Who are we then to disagree?

15 November 2009

14 November 2009

Last Friday I attended a forum on California’s toxic business environment, and left stunned. The forum was held at the behest of Assemblyman Dan Logue as part of his ongoing investigation of why businesses in the state are heading for greener pastures elsewhere. In attendance at the Rood Center were also Representative Tom McClintock and various Nevada County political leaders. Testifying was a grim array of the county’s business owners – operational word here is ‘grim’.

RR readers are aware of the coverage I, other local bloggers, and The Union have given the most devastating of the recent legislative bombshells from Sacramento – AB32, the CO2 ball and chain that is now being administered by the California Air Resources Board. This law and its spawn of regulations will single-handedly keep California permanently in its economic doldrums.

Local leftwing bloggers have done what comes naturally in their coverage of AB32. The Union has attempted a more ‘balanced account’ of the issue about which there is nothing in balance (their report here). If you’re a collectivist who sees a happy land after uniformly applied poverty, you will celebrate this latest explosion of government power. If you’re a free market conservative, especially with a technical or financial background, you see it for the disaster that it is. And if you’re a consumer of any stripe, stand by for ram – shortages, higher prices, limited choices, permits and fees every time you turn around, … .

[This editorial appears today (14 November 2009) in The Union’s print and online opinion sections (here). This is the submitted version. gjr]

George Rebane

The case has been made that public sector unions (PSUs) are bankrupting governments across the land. Moreover, they are a “bad deal for taxpayers and representative government”. Failure to cure the current recession has focused many organizations, mostly on the right, to re-examine the history and data from the last several decades of PSU growth to confirm such conclusions.

Problems compound when PSUs are given monopoly power to supply government workers at any level, from federal down to counties and cities. Representative government is often compromised - “elected officials undermine their duty to taxpayers, … this puts unions in a privileged position to extract political goods in the form of high pay and benefits that are much higher than anything comparable in the private sector.”

To contend such conclusions one must explain away the widely available research on comparable pay. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that, over time, public sector vs comparable private sector average salaries have climbed into the 1.5X to 2X range. And the private sector cannot touch the pension and added healthcare benefits of the government workers’ total compensation package.

Salaries and benefits are the largest component of government budgets. And when a public sector union (PSU) is involved, the employee compensation negotiations disappear from taxpayer view. This blackout is required by laws carefully put in place by PSU supported politicians. In the aftermath of their successes, the PSUs are not bashful about their involvement. Recently, the Service Employees International Union bragged that it had spent over $50 million to elect President Obama, $27 million of which came out of its PAC, and it expected great things in return.

13 November 2009

Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay. - Milton Friedman

The von Mises Institute is a leading source of Austrian school perspectives on economics and public policy, and an oft quoted source on RR. It just published ‘Obamacare is a Devastating Tax on the Working Class’ which should give even the diehard progressive pause on some of the most regressive effects of this foray into socialized medicine. It will hit hardest those workers who are at the margin, and those seeking to gain the first step on the economic ladder. The arguments are clear and accessible. The gargantuan cost of this misguided piece of social engineering will be of historic proportions; our kids and grandchildren may yet piss on our graves.

Given the recent announcement that the government's measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama's healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of "Obamacare" on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats' bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices.

The article is not long and definitely worth a read, especially if you voted for Obama. Hat tip to a RR reader for the heads up on this piece. [update] And more thanks to another RR reader for sending the following addition.

12 November 2009

11 November 2009

Veterans/Armistice Day. This morning I rushed down to the Grass Valley Veterans Building to partake of the scheduled ceremonies that annually observe our debt to the armed forces of America. Given the involvement of our armed forces and current events, the observance was not well attended – many seats on the floor were empty, and the bleachers were sparsely occupied. Our Congressman Tom McClintock gave a quick speech before having to rush off to another engagement – these are busy times for politicians. His good and proper remarks were entirely backward looking – there was no mention of the current global battle with Islam, no outrage at Ft Hood, no rallying of our citizens to resist and preserve. The rear view mirror contains such clear and comforting reflections.

The Ft Hood massacre by one of our homegrown Islamic terrorists was similarly observed at a massive memorial service yesterday. The murdered GIs were remembered as if they had died in a bus accident on the way to catch a plane to their mid-east deployments. The President’s reference to the murderer’s “twisted logic” was a brief sop to the fact that this had not been a bus accident. But then he totally misinformed his audience on the peaceful nature of all religions. Army Chief of Staff, General Casey, got up and recited the next verse of his longstanding ode ‘Let’s Not Irritate the Muslims’. Islam is a mighty belief system that informs and motivates the lives of over 1.6 billion or about a fourth of the world’s people and many of its cultures. Yet somehow it is still difficult for us to get past the notion that our war is only about shooting some ragheads flitting among the rocks in Afghanistan. This is the leadership under which our troops must fight and sacrifice.

EPA is still trying to gag Dr. Alan Carlin, one of its own scientists whose March 2009 report (5.12MB pdf) “questioned whether EPA should simply defer to United Nations’ assertions that carbon dioxide emissions are causing a global warming crisis that threatens human health and the environment.” The good doctor is finally starting to speak out about his censorship and the so-called science that has now been swallowed worldwide. In his words, “The business of science is being skeptical, and if you’re not skeptical, you’re probably not doing science. … It’s my view that the EPA needs to go through the scientific arguments themselves and not rely on what others outside the EPA have said.”

[12nov09 update] Here is another recent report on scientists whose arguments contradicting man-made global warming are being ignored and/or attacked by the one-worlders.

Finally, the Tea Party Patriots and related organizations are forming up to launch the “Citizen Power Campaign” to gather 1.1 million California signatures for a November 2010 initiative to stop public sector unions in their onslaught on the democratic process. I guess the important thing to note from the gitgo is that it is not a y’all come ‘people power’ campaign. This highly discriminatory enterprise attempts to distinguish between the interests of American citizens and those who got here through a hole in the fence. Over the next twelve months, pay particular attention to the groups rising in opposition. More here.

09 November 2009

Senator Lieberman will now start holding hearings on whether Major ‘Allahu Akbar!’ Hasan is a terrorist. It is for me a great sadness, perhaps above all others, to watch western culture, my culture in its writhing death throes. In our jaundiced teaching that all the world's cultures are of equal worth, we daily sacrifice more of the one that has given and continues to give mankind its most abundant blessings.

Consider this, after all these years Homeland Security has yet to issue a report on Muslims in the military. General Casey, the current Army Chief of Staff, has restated that he is most concerned about discrimination against Muslims. The prime reason Hasan was not outed is that his colleagues and their superiors admitted that their motive for burying the abundant reports about Hasan’s radicalization was political correctness – they were also afraid of being accused of discrimination. So thirteen people died, and many more lives were permanently derailed. (Russ Steele of NC Media Watch has more on this.)

Hasan is a man who unabashedly evangelized the Islamic cause and worldview. He attended a radicalized mosque and handed out business cards with “SOA(SWT)” printed under his name. SOA stands for ‘Soldier of Allah’, and SWT is the traditional Arab homage ‘Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala’ (Glory to Him, the Exalted) inserted by the faithful after every mention/writing of Allah or Muhammad. And we are now worried if his killing spree was perhaps spawned by some “secondary stress syndrome”. I hope Joe Lieberman can quickly lay that crap to rest so that the current “rush to whitewash” inside the Beltway can be short-circuited. There should be some real bad stuff coming out of all this.

Michelle Malkin, nationally syndicated columnist, has made the point that “political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.” Think about it, the more they attempt to paint Hasan as just an ordinary American Muslim, the more firmly they drive home the logical conclusion that such acts of terror by your friendly neighborhood Muslim are completely undetectable, and therefore unpredictable. Your only choice is to suck it up and stand by for the next one, or … .

An alternative way forward is for the self-proclaimed, America-loving Muslim communities to stand up all over this land and unequivocally tell everyone that not only do they abhor the Hasans in their midst, but that they will not tolerate them, and demonstrate this by outing the ones currently in training, plotting, and scheming. In short, remove Mao Tse-tung’s ‘friendly sea’ in which all successful indigenous terrorists must swim. If the Muslim community continues their shameful silence, the alternative will not be a pretty America.

And sooner than later in a large American city, someone with a suitcase shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ will spawn a mushroom cloud. Only then there will be no one to report what that Muslim said before he hit the pickle.

08 November 2009

There is no middle ground anymore. The House version of Obamacare passed last night on a party line vote while we were at a local charity event. My faithful iPhone, with a realtime AP feed application, gave its familiar ‘hot off the press’ audio signal as we were preparing to eat, and I read the short summary to our table. There was no celebration in Mudville last night.

But to see how differently nationalized healthcare and its impact on our republic is viewed, take a peek at these two perspectives. (Exercise for the careful reader – identify the elements, if any, of common ground between the right and left views.)

The socialists see no fiscal impact, abridgements of freedoms, reduced healthcare services, and massive government encroachment in the country’s economy. They celebrate the much publicized attributes of the Peter/Paul Principle, and look forward to another successful victory in their ongoing class warfare. Happy times are here again.

The dastardly free-market capitalists (aka conservatives) fully embrace Obama’s promise that this will be one of the mainstays of his promised “fundamental transformation of the country.” You can peruse their views of our future here.

07 November 2009

"It ain't what you don't know that worries me, it's what you know that ain't so." Will Rogers

We are often taught that parties can always settle their differences by engaging in a reasoned dialogue – ‘Come, let us reason together.’ But the evidence, today available in thousands of comment threads on more thousands of blogs and online media outlets, seems to contradict such hopeful paths to resolution. Self-referentially I can say that there is no reasonable basis for such a conclusion. It’s the word ‘always’ that becomes the bugaboo, and gives lie to the frequent goal and noble sentiment. Fisher and Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project acknowledged this failure in their landmark essay Getting to Yes (1981).

Recently this point was driven home by Mr. Steven Frisch, a RR reader and commenter of the liberal persuasion. He posted two magnificent and voluminous ripostes (here and here) wherein he seeks to destroy my motive and method for the offered commentaries. As I studied his comments in preparation for a reply, it became clear that his presumably reasoned compositions belonged to a class that was inaccessible to me (and perhaps others). To contend with his assertions and accusations on a point-by-point basis would be a fruitless effort. From my perch, his reasoning was insane and would give no purchase for me to attempt a reply. Let me explain.